In Tennessee, we have a version of RPC 1.6(b)(4) patterned after the ABA Model Rule that permits a lawyer to disclose confidential client information for the purpose of getting advice about how to comply with his/her ethical obligations. The last sentence of Comment [9] to that rule stresses that this disclosure can only be made, however, if […]
Author: Brian Faughnan
Categories
“Does this require a response?”
“Does this require a response?” Print those words out and tape them to the top of your monitor or laptop screen. They are words to live by. Practicing law is stressful and always has been. Lawyers have always known that they can make mistakes that destroy their client’s life or financial situation and potentially their […]
Last week I was confronted with another example of how valuable excellent IT professionals can be for practicing lawyers. As routinely happens, our firm’s spam filter trapped a significant number of emails last Wednesday. Because legitimate email sometimes gets wrongly blocked or filtered, our IT folks also review what gets caught in the filters. Last […]
Categories
Two updates and a (hidden) microphone.
A few items for your consideration over this coming long, Labor Day weekend. The first is an update on a proposed ethics opinion made the subject of an earlier post. The Florida Bar’s Board of Governors has now ultimately decided to reject the approach that had been recommended by its advertising subcommittee, which proposed that […]
Today, we spend a few more minutes addressing a topic that will likely be a rich vein of discussion for years to come or for at least for as long as lawyers continue to be human beings whichever is shorter. (Even with this news, you figure we have a few years left before we have […]
Let’s play a little game called: Bad ethics opinion or the worst ethics opinion? Earlier this month, the Supreme Court of Ohio Board of Professional Conduct issued Opinion 2015-2 about whether/how a lawyer presenting at a legal seminar can distribute brochures to prospective clients and whether the lawyer can answer legal questions posed by the […]
My paternal grandfather succumbed to Alzheimer’s disease. As someone who makes a living (such as it is) using his mind (and is pretty certain that he could not feed his family if forced to use his hands for a living), the loss of my mental faculties is one of my greatest fears. In that regard, […]
This is an update on the California lawyer who successfully compelled arbitration of a client’s salacious claims that he treated her as essentially a “sex slave” that I wrote about here. While I talked about that case as an example of the growing power of arbitration provisions in the arena of attorney-client contracts, I did […]
I am excited to formally announce that I will be doing the Ethics Roadshow for the Tennessee Bar Association again in 2015. I am also really excited about this year’s theme and the prospect of putting together an entire 3-hour presentation that offers up answers to actual questions on the minds of those in the […]
It was about two years ago when a man from Ohio put up a Kickstarter to raise $10 to make potato salad and ended up receiving tens of thousands of dollars in donations. I’m sure there were many people who were familiar with this concept before then, but for me that was the first I’d […]